details

Statement of Significance

The Wesleyan Methodist church in Willunga had several attempts at building a suitable church in Willunga. its first and second buildings had a bell . it was removed and hung in a nearby gum tree in 1895, where it has been ever since. This tree is nominated as an unusual use for a tree and a local curiosity

History

as above

Location

as in the photograph. it is easy to find in the 'bell paddock'.

Other

a local curiosity and unusual use of a tree

Notes

THE BELL TREE, 3 ST JUDE’S STREET, WILLUNGA
NOMINATION STORY (Draft for comments) November 2016
{The intention of this story is to nominate this tree for acceptance to the National Trust’s Significant Tree Register, thus giving it a permanent place on the national record of culturally and historically important trees. What is said needs to be true or at least deducible from the contemporary facts}
Contacts: Karen, Jan Strout, Marion Floyd
Uniting Church 8556 2650 Tues and Thur 9.30-12.30
Introduction
South Australia’s second oldest settlement, Willunga, was founded in 1839. It has several trees which the National Trust of South Australia has deemed ‘significant’ by its definition of Significant Tree.
The Bell Tree is the local name for one more tree of local importance, with connections to early establishment of the Wesleyan-Methodist church in the town.
The Willunga parish was one of the first country centres established by Anglican Bishop Short on his arrival in 1847. He placed the Rev. Arthur Burnett in charge of Willunga, Noarlunga, Port Elliot and Yankalilla. The Reverend Burnett settled in Willunga, then a convenient staging post for travellers making their way from Adelaide to places like Port Elliot.
As a desirable settlement place, Willunga soon attracted people of other faiths, who set about building their separate places of worship. The Wesleyan-Methodists were one such group, and it is they who host the story of the bell in the gum tree. Willunga was also the first country circuit for the large Wesleyan community in South Australia, ministering to many Cornish quarrymen, their families, and leading townspeople.
This nomination is about how, why and when, a bell from one of the chapels on this site, was placed in a tree, and not rehung in a building.
(Apparently) It has on it a date suggesting it was cast in the reign of Queen Elizabeth 1. The bell hangs in the tree with its wheel. The trunk is studded with wrought iron rings, vertically spaced, as if there was a bell pull by which the bell could be rung. There was no visible bell-pull in 2016.
Chapel chronology (as revised with BMcM))
The history of this site appears to be:
1844 First Wesleyan chapel built. Found to be too small, it was doubled in size.
1848 Second Wesleyan chapel built alongside the first chapel. This is the chapel in which the ‘Bell’ was first installed; possibly in 1857. Local boot-maker William Illman collected money for its purchase. It later became the Sunday School Hall, which is still in use.
1856/7 The third Wesleyan chapel was built because the second chapel had become unsafe and partially demolished in about 1895 being maintained as a smaller building (in handwriting), after which the second chapel became the Sunday School hall, and still in use. This third chapel was a much larger building erected on the site of the present church. It became unsafe and was demolished and replaced in 1895 by the present (fourth) church/chapel, built in a shorter and narrower Gothic style. It was officially opened in April 1896 with the pastor Rev I. Perry presiding.
1876 Thomas Lipson was paid 10 shillings for his services as bell-ringer.
1881 A more conveniently located church site was acquired
1884 A new church was started on the more convenient site.
1887 The bell developed a crack and had to be sent away to be mended.
18**(?) The Bell paddock was bought by the Wesleyan Sunday School
1895 The fourth and present Wesleyan chapel was built in a shorter and narrower Gothic style. The bell (of this story) was removed from the second chapel and placed in the gum tree, when the 4th chapel was built. The gum tree must have been thought ‘mature’ in 1895, and the bell has been in it for 121 years, in 2016.
1896 The fourth (and present) church/chapel was officially opened by pastor I. Perry.
1901 In Australia the Wesleyan church became the Methodist church
1906 The nearby hall and the original Sunday School Hall were built
1930 The Kindergarten and kitchen were added to the Hall
1977 The Methodist church became the Uniting church
2009 The redeveloped Uniting Church Hall was opened
The bell’s history
A bell weighing 225lb, allegedly made in the time of Queen Elizabeth 1, (thus predating settlement in Australia by some 300 years) was first installed in the second chapel building, sometime after 1848 (do we know when?).
The bell was difficult to take down for repairs as the tree was described as ‘much decayed’. The Adelaide Register of 6 Sep 1921 said in part: On 1 Sept, the Rev. H. Thrush became the seventh rector of the picturesque old world town of Willunga.
The bell developed a crack in 1887. William Illman, a staunch member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, collected money for it to be recast at the Union Engineering Company.
Between 1887 and 1895 the repaired bell was housed in the second chapel. The Bell paddock was bought by the Sunday School of the nearby Wesleyan Church and presented to the Trustees of the Church to keep the land free of any unsuitable buildings.
The Bell possibly dates from the second church (1857). Local boot-maker William Illman collected money for its purchase. In 1876 Thomas Lipson was paid 10 shillings for his services as bell-ringer.
In 1895 it was hung about 10m above ground, in a convenient River Red gum tree on land owned by the Uniting Church in St Jude’s St, Willunga - where it still hangs in 2016.
The statement of significance for this nomination is: A bell, allegedly made in the time of Queen Elizabeth 1, (thus predating settlement in Australia by some 300 years) hangs in a River red gum in St Jude’s St, Willunga, on land owned by the Uniting Church. It was used in the second Wesleyan church and was removed from it in 1895, and placed ten metres up in the canopy of a river red gum. This tree is nominated as an unusual cultural use of a tree, by Willunga’s earlier settlers. It has ‘local’ significance only.
This Red River Gum is a remnant tree that survived the initial vegetation clearances needed to establish Willunga as South Australia’s second settlement, in 1839. Its local name is “the Bell Tree”, because a church bell placed in its upper canopy in 1895, has been hanging there for 121 years. This tree was plainly mature even then.

This plaque is screwed to a board fixed to the tree.

Notes from various contemporary sources – to be incorporated into the story, and deleted from this text once verified.
Willunga was the first country circuit for the large Wesleyan community in South Australia, ministering to many Cornish quarrymen, their families, and leading townspeople.
This is the fourth church built on this site. The first church was opened in 1844. A second larger church was built alongside it in 1848, later to become the Sunday School Hall, and still in use in 2016.
In 1856/57 a much larger building was erected on the site of the present church. This third church became unsafe and was demolished and replaced in 1895 by the present (fourth) Church, built in a shorter and narrower Gothic style.
The church was officially opened in April 1896 with the pastor Rev I. Perry presiding. The total cost of demolishing the old building and erecting the new one was stated to be about ?400 of which about ?200 had been raised by subscriptions and the proceeds of the opening services.
The nearby hall is the original Sunday School Hall built in 1906. In 1930 a Kindergarten and kitchen were added to this building and opened by Miss Alice Dowty, Superintendent of the Sunday school. The Uniting Church Hall was completed in April 2009.
Bootmaker's Shop and Residence 17 Aldinga Road, Willunga
Built in 1856 by William Joseph Bott who, with his second wife Mary, set up a successful boot-making business here.
William had been a shoe-maker in Brigstock in Northamptonshire before coming to SA in 1855 as a widower with 3 dependent children. He re-married to Mary Patrick in 1856 in Adelaide and they decided to open a bootmaking business in Willunga. The shop opened in the same year - Bott employed his son Thomas and future son-in-law William Illman to help him.
Lucy Bott married William Illman in 1864 and they lived here at the shop. As a staunch member of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, William Illman collected money for the bell later placed in the gum tree in St. Jude’s St.
William and Lucy Illman bought the house and boot-making business from William Bott in 1869 and possibly lived here until their deaths in 1924 and 1933 respectively.
The Lister family lived in the cottage in the 1930s when Dick Lister was Officer-in-charge at Kyeema Prison Farm at Kuitpo.
It was converted to a Thai restaurant - Ampika's Kitchen, closed in 2014. It is now the Cobbler's Cottage Bed and Breakfast.
A Church Bell hangs about 10 metres above the ground in this large red gum tree.
The Bell paddock was bought by the Sunday School of the nearby Wesleyan Church and presented to the Trustees of the Church to keep the land free of any unsuitable buildings.
The Bell possibly dates from the second church (1857). Local boot-maker William Illman collected money for its purchase. In 1876 Thomas Lipson was paid 10 shillings for his services as bell-ringer.
The bell was moved to its present position in the tree in 1895 when the fourth church was being built.
Description: River Red Gum (Eucalyptus camaldulensis)
The dimensions of this tree were taken at noon on the morning of 24 October, 2016, by Glenn Williams and Michael Heath. They were:
Ht (using clinometer): 22.6m
Trunk circ at 1.3m (using plastic tape measure): 4.4m
Canopy spread (N-S) (using plastic tape measure): 18.8m
Canopy spread (E-W) (using plastic tape measure): 18.4m
The river red gum is one of around 800 trees from Australia, with the most widespread natural distribution. It is a fast-growing, long-lived evergreen tree. Its generic name Eucalyptus comes from the Greek eu + kalyptós, meaning covered, or wrapped, a reference to the operculum, or cap, covering the seed pods.
Its specific name camaldulensis refers to a private estate garden near the Camaldoli monastery near Naples, from where the first specimen came to be described. Material from this tree was used by Frederick Dehnhardt, Chief Gardener at the Botanic Gardens in Naples, to describe this species in 1832.
Its natural habitat along inland water courses makes it an iconic tree across Australia. It offers welcome shade in extreme temperatures, and its root help stabilise river banks.

Trunk and bark detail mature form

The Bell Tree, Uniting Church, Willunga, 1985.

References:
A Church Bell hangs about 10 metres above the ground in this large red gum tree.
The Bell paddock was bought by the Sunday School of the nearby Wesleyan Church and presented to the Trustees of the Church to keep the land free of any unsuitable buildings.
The Bell possibly dates from the second church (1857). Local boot-maker William Illman collected money for its purchase. In 1876 Thomas Lipson was paid 10 shillings for his services as bell-ringer.
The bell was moved to its present position in the tree in 1895 when the fourth church was being built.
R Baxendale & F Lush Willunga Walks Willunga National Trust Willunga 2010 (1989)
Wesleyan Church
The bell was 225lb in weight, and difficult to take down for repairs as the tree was described as ‘much decayed’.
In 1881 the church acquired a more conveniently located church site, and a new church started from1884.
The Adelaide Register of 6 Sep 1921 said in part: On 1 Sept, the Rev. H. Thrush became the seventh rector of the picturesque old world town of Willunga.

Sources:
• http://willungahttp://willunga.nowandthen.net.au/Bell_Tree;
• R Baxendale & F Lush Willunga Walks Willunga National Trust Willunga 2010 (1989)
•